A Soldier's Duty
by Lunar Sunsets
Summary: A soldier's duty is to protect. To save innocent lives. Even at the cost of their own, they are expected to fight and protect humanity. Every soldier swears to die killing the Titans that have pushed humanity to the brink of extinction, to kill without mercy, without sympathy, without a a second thought.


**A/N: 24 hours of Attack on Titan exposure does things to a person. And sometimes those thins result in a crossover fic that breaks the author's heart. I hope it hurts you has much as it hurt me, in a good way. c: And I suppose I may write more for this AU, or whatever you might call it, since really it's just the characters in another universe.**

**Also I uploaded this once before and then took it down because I wanted to use it to write a full-on multi-chapter fic but I just can't right now so um yeah sorry. But here it is again a second time to stay.**

* * *

Glinda was angry. No. She was beyond angry. She was outright _pissed_.

How could her best friend of eleven years lie to her about something so crucial to her identity? Something that Glinda _deserved_ to know? Eleven years they had been friends and Elphaba had been lying to her - just like Fiyero had…

"How dare you?" Glinda screamed, walking up to the tall brunette, fists clenched tightly at her side. "How dare you, Elphaba Thropp? First you comfort me when Fiyero turns out to be a Titan in disguise and then you - "

"Glinda please," the brunette whispered, reaching out to grab the petite blonde's shoulders. The blonde glared at Elphaba with pure hatred and stepped back, right out of reach. Her heart hurt when she saw the pain flash in her best friend's dark eyes, but she pushed it away.

No.

Elphaba wasn't her friend anymore.

Elphaba was the enemy.

_Don't let her in again, Glinda. Don't let her in. Keep her distant._

_Don't let her see how much you…_

"Glinda, I'm so sorry," Elphaba whispered, her voice cracking. She looked away from Glinda, her arms dropping to her sides limply, her shoulders slumping. She looked so pathetic. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have hid this from you. You deserved to know…I…"

"Shut up, Elphaba! Just shut up!" Glinda shouted.

She was a little glad they were in an empty part of the city. As much as she despised Elphaba in this moment - _and will forever_, she reminded herself - she couldn't bring herself to want her friend to die at the hands of the Military.

If Elphaba was meant to die by anyone's hands, it was Glinda's. Because Glinda would make it as painless and as quick as possible, even if she wanted to drag it out, she knew she wouldn't be able to.

"You lied to me for eleven years!" the blonde shouted. "You lied to me about being a traitor to humanity! You joined the Scouting Legion to kill Titans, Elphaba! Why? Why would you dare to kill Titans if you are one? Were you and Fiyero working together? Why did you hide it?"

The questions wouldn't stop. Glinda's eyes started to fill with tears. _Don't let Elphaba see you cry. Don't let the enemy see you weak._

Elphaba stood there, gaze on the stone ground, not moving.

When the questions finally stopped coming, Elphaba looked up and noticed Glinda was on the verge of crying. Her face was red, her blue eyes shimmering with unshed tears, her jaw clenched tightly, standing straight and tall…

Sometimes, it was hard to ignore how strong and beautiful Glinda was. How much she had grown. How far she had come from that crying girl eleven years ago, just rebounding from the loss of her brother and vowing to get revenge.

"I didn't want them hurting you…"

"Why would they hurt me?" Glinda almost screamed, desperate to replace her pain with anger. She hated Elphaba.

"Because your best friend is a Titan, Glinda! They would automatically assume that you are one too and you would die with me!" Elphaba screamed, reaching out and grabbing Glinda's shoulders, digging her nails into her jacket, allowing herself to cry just a little. "I can't let you die at the hands of the people you joined to protect everyone! I can't let them hurt you!"

The blonde was too shocked by her friend's sudden outburst to shake out of her grasp. Not once in the past nine years had Elphaba cried, not even when Fiyero turned and killed most of their squad.

Not even when they found Boq's body and Glinda cried.

It was a foreign thing Glinda forgot Elphaba could even do anymore.

"I can't lose you. I can't lose anyone else, Glinda. Please," Elphaba pleaded, voice barely rising above a strained whisper. She pulled Glinda into a tight hug, burying her nose in the blonde mass of curls, closing her eyes and trying to memorize how Glinda smelled. How she felt. How she made _Elphaba_ feel. "Please."

The blonde regained her steely composure and tore herself away from Elphaba, stepping just out of reach again. She glared at her friend, eyes darkening to a deep azure.

Elphaba just stared back, her usually dark and steely brown eyes now warm chocolate brown and full of regret and pain. It took all of Glinda's restraint not to pull her tall friend into a hug - an intimate hug that they used to share at random times, a hug that lasted usually far longer than necessary, a hug that screamed their want for the other to survive just one more day, a hug that was meant to memorize the other's touch and scent.

Sadly, Glinda felt like she couldn't remember anything about Elphaba. She was staring at her best friend of eleven years, but felt like she was staring at a stranger in the streets. She could barely even remember anything about her.

There was just one word on the tip of her tongue. One word that she had to say. "Why?" her voice came out weak and shaky, reverting back to when she was still that little girl, afraid to face the Titans. Afraid to join the Military.

"I told you why, Glinda."

"Elphaba…" the tiny blonde sighed. She let her shoulders slump just a little, part of her steely composure disappearing. She stared at her friend for a few fleeting moments, wanting to memorize the sharp features, the sparkling eyes, the way corners of her mouth were always just a little curled, a ghostly smile always on her face.

She longed to feel Elphaba's breath on her neck, to hear her voice whispering in her ear, telling her that fear was not worth it, that the Titans would not win.

Glinda wanted nothing more to feel the bond between them again. She just wanted her best friend back. She wanted to be able to trust Elphaba again, but she couldn't.

The bond they shared had been severed the moment Elphaba saved her life as a Titan. And as much as it hurt for the blonde soldier to do it, she had to walk away.

So she squared her shoulders, trying to make herself as tall as physically possible. She took a deep, shaky breath and saluted, locking her wobbly legs so she wouldn't fall over.

"Elphaba Thropp," she said, her voice not much more than a strained whisper. She was reverting back to the little girl she never wanted to be again. And it killed her to know that. "I swore to kill Titans and help humanity as a soldier of the Scouting Legion. I swore to die before I let a Titan run free from me, no matter the fear I may feel."

With one last broken glance into warm brown eyes, Glinda closed her own eyes, a few tears forcing their way out and down her cheeks, and took a deep breath.

"I swore to kill mercilessly each and every Titan until I draw my last breath and I cannot break that vow. I swear, the next time we meet…" there was a very short pause, a pause that Glinda refused to open her eyes during, "The next time we meet, I will kill you like the Titan you are!"

And with that, the tiny blonde turned on her heels and took off in the opposite direction, tears now freely falling from her face, her last words to Elphaba bouncing around in her head, repeatedly endlessly.


End file.
